Customer Service

Business Solutions Unfair to Customers

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Emotional Advocacy
Yesterday, I started writing about the book, Human Sigma by John Fleming and Jim Asplund and as promised, I wanted to continue exploring the book today. One of the things I was happy to see addressed was the idea of the single question customer survey. I had pondered the validity using the question, “Would you recommend this company to others?” in a past entry.

Fleming and Asplund note that not only do you miss a lot of information by asking only one question, but also all advocates are not created equal. As discussed in my last entry, people can be satisfied and thus have no reservations about suggesting a company or service to others, yet they aren’t really invested in the company and may defect. Then there are those who are emotionally invested and can serve as enthusiastic promoters.

The authors don’t have any specific suggestions about what questions to pose on satisfaction surveys, likely because they urge you to “get under the hood” of customer relationships and ask about things that matter. What matters to one business may not have any significance to another.

The authors give an example of a survey they conducted at an amusement park where most of the feedback they received was negative. People complained on and on about the parking, lines, the prices, the food and the lack of shade. When they were asked if they would return, everyone said they would without hesitation. The deciding factor was their childrens’ enjoyment. Had they the same experience on a Saturday night (sans the lack of shade) at one of our performance venues, they would never come back again, but the vicarious joy they experience through their kids provides an emotional connection with the theme park.

Fairness In Interactions
Later in the book, the authors discuss perceptions of fairness and how that can feed people’s emotional investment. That section of the book is fairly long so it is difficult for me to cover all the ways interactions can be viewed as fair or not. Anyone who has worked in customer services knows that people’s preferred treatment can swing between wanting to be treated exactly like everyone else to wanting an exception made for them, all depending on their situation.

There were a few examples they gave that are recognizable as significant the arts world. For instance, subscribers and donors who have invested themselves in your organization expect preferential treatment in return for their loyalty. (The example the book gives is airline frequent flier program.) If you launch a campaign to attract new business that offers a better situation to new people than to long time customers, you run the risk of alienating them. An example that comes to mind is the low introductory rates offered on cable television packages that are only good for new accounts while you get no recognition for your long term relationship.

Another example in the performing arts world can be found in ticket exchange policies. Many organizations have a no return/no exchange policy with subscribers and donors being the only exception. As long as policies and procedures are enforced equitably, there is no problem. But once you perform an exchange for a flat tire but not my canceled babysitter excuse, then the inequity in the system is exposed. And then there are policies that are confusing to patrons from the start such as why internet and phone orders incur a service fee but walk up orders don’t.

Business Solutions Unfair
One example they give as an impediment to good customer relationships is the phone queue with the recorded message about your call being important leaving you to reconcile how this can be if the place is so poorly staffed the average wait time is twenty minutes. What the authors say about this really struck me, (my emphasis) “From the customer’s perspective, any process or system whose primary purpose is to solve a business problem rather than a customer concern is unfair.”

They also note that treating people equally can appear unfair. If your customer service staff follows the exact same scripted process with customers not recognizing that the script can’t cover all eventualities, the result may make you look incompetent and patronizing for asking questions or suggesting solutions which obviously do not apply to the situation.

Tomorrow I want to address what the book says about solving customer problems. It turns out how you attempt to resolve a problem is much more important than whether you actually solve it.

A Folding Table, A Jug of Water and Thou Sweating In The Parking Lot

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I am reading a book about customer service right now. My intention is to report some observations on the text as a whole at some point. However, I saw an illustration of one of the points made in an early chapter today. The book had noted the veracity of “time flies when you are having fun” pointing out that a well designed wait that is 30 minutes long can actually seem shorter than a poorly designed wait that is only a third as long. Because human perception is involved, you can ruin a relationship with a customer in the latter situation even though you significantly reduced their wait time.

Our campus is in a situation with many strikes against it. Budgets have been cut so staffing is down but enrollment is up adding an additional 1500 student to our commuter campus. Alas, the heretofore un(der) used overflow parking is now inaccessible due to long delayed construction projects.

There wasn’t much to be done about the parking unfortunately, but someone got organized this year and had information tables distributed about the campus with all sorts of hand outs and big coolers of water. There were also large color campus maps that someone slapped up on the sides of buildings so people didn’t have to seek out kiosks to figure out where they were.

I looked around wondering why no one had thought to do this before. People had always volunteered to serve an hour or so on the welcome committee but it was never this organized or welcoming. People stood around smiling, answering questions and engaging people who looked lost. Now there is a table identifiable as a source of information from a distance that is stocked with information—and most importantly after trekking in from that parking space in the hinterlands you stalked for 30 minutes–water to drink.

While I walked around comparing what I was seeing to previous years, I realized that tweaking your customer service up a level or two doesn’t just help your relationship with those you serve. It also sends a message to other employees about the commitment of the organization. Memos about improving service are useful and identify areas for improvement. In this case, there were no memos that went out about how things were going to be done better—it was just done.

I am obviously someone whose business it is to think about improving customer interactions so I notice such things. But I have to believe that others noticed the improvement, how it fit in the context of other recent changes and what it all says about the direction of the organization.

I also had some insight into the issue of providing volunteers with opportunities to feel they are doing important work. I have never really had much desire to volunteer for welcoming slots before. Today when I witnessed the increased effort at hospitality, I had a desire to participate next time around. (Just have to remember not to schedule sending the brochure to the printer, interviewing a ticket office clerk and starting internet sales on this day next time.) In previous years, my impression of the job was that it provided a pleasant first impression of the institution and directions to buildings. With the addition of tables, maps and water jugs, suddenly it seems like an important contribution to relieving anxious new arrivals.

We are planning a volunteer luncheon/training in a few weeks so perhaps I am in a receptive mindset on the subject. We have been thinking about how to design the volunteering experience so people have a greater feeling of doing something of value. We have been discussing increasing volunteers’ scope of responsibility and authority. I believe we also have to consider if these duties will allow them to feel they are providing a service patrons find valuable. Though certainly, people volunteer for different reasons and more authority may be a bigger motivator than being useful.

Rewarding Any Bit Of Intiative

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I have been thinking about performance awards for employees a fair bit lately in the context of our cleaning staff. Our building has three different people assigned to clean it. One guy is responsible for my office, another is responsible for the basement and another takes care of the lobby and seating area. The shop area we have to clean ourselves since there is just too much potential for the wrong thing to get tossed out.

What seems to reinforce the low status of theatre in the Great Chain of Being is that the newest person hired is assigned to clean the lobby and seating area. Yes, that’s right, the person with the least experience is assigned to clean the area in which my organization interacts with the community. I have no idea why this is but I have been cautioned against pushing too hard in getting it changed.

The technical director’s theory about why we are a training ground is that perhaps each person is expected to clean X square feet a day and it is easier to gain experience cleaning the wide open space of the lobby and aisle versus the same square footage across individual offices.

Whatever the case may be, the results are inconsistent cleaning job except in one unerring activity. I haven’t been able to get any of them to regularly dust even the most obvious spots like the tops of the banisters and the 100 foot ledge in front of the mural. I know they are instructed to keep the area clean. It just never happens as it should.

In the last few months, the building supervisor told me that the guy newly assigned to clean the basement is excellent. Given our past experience, that didn’t seem like it would be hard to achieve in comparison so I was pretty skeptical.

But I happened downstairs just before I went on vacation and saw the guy was cleaning the dirty fingerprints off all the doors. In all my time here, that has never been done by the cleaning staff. Since my return I have wandered around the basement and noticed that nooks and corners are now looking neater and spiffed up.

Finally we have a guy who sees things that need to be done and is doing it. He is also making note of things that are broken and suggesting they be fixed. This proactive approach is no small matter because the basement contains our green room, dressing rooms and dance studios. These areas get the heaviest daily use and are the fastest to become soiled. So having these rooms look good when guest artists and renters use the facilities goes some distance in creating a good impression.

I know that there are awards given out to buildings and grounds people. While I can’t submit a nomination, I am resolved to talk to someone who can about putting his name in. As I have been thinking about doing this, it occurred to me that saying someone got the award for excellence in janitorial service at the ceremony doesn’t really provide an example for others to emulate. I’ll admit, getting an award for wiping the finger prints off doors doesn’t sound like a behavior you would strive to model either.

I am discovering that taking that sort of initiative is a rarer thing than I imagined among people at large. Janitorial staffs are hardly deserving of being singled out in this regard. When I was growing up, I thought only people who performed extraordinarily and heroically got awards. Now I realize there is a great deal of worth in doing the mundane very well.

In fact, I think this is one of the lies our educational system perpetuates along with the destiny altering power of your permanent record. Throughout your childhood and higher education, those who have made the most extraordinary achievement receive awards. Certainly, there is value in this because you don’t get to the moon by mediocrity. But generally once you graduate and are in the real world, the grades you got in school are an invisible factor in relation to how valuable you are to your company, family and friends.

There is certainly no substitute for brilliance, but making the choice to take the initiative is within the power of pretty much everyone. In school, it is often the people who added hard work to a special quality who get rewarded. The vast majority were never in the running despite hard work because they lacked that special quality.

It is becoming increasingly clear to me in the professional setting, it is extremely important to reward those who make the choice to go beyond the minimum expectation because this is a reward the vast majority can obtain on their own merit. I am not referring to a feel good reward for everyone, I am talking about providing incentive in order to receive a higher standard of service that everyone can provide.

I will say, there is a part of me that is disappointed that I even have to suggest this. I mentioned earlier that I am recognizing that doing the mundane well is commendable. That is because I have been coming from a place where I expected a certain standard of behavior as a norm only to realize that standard was actually abnormal. Frankly, I wonder if I am not making this suggestion out of a mild sense of desperation to raise thing to a place I consider normal before it sinks any further.

Prior to visiting China I remember reading that saying thank you when receiving some service or polite gesture might be seen as insulting because good service is expected and expressing appreciation implies otherwise. So I wonder in contrast about the United States. Are ubiquitous statements of thanks and tip jars on every counter creating an environment in which expectation of more than the minimum requires some sort of recognition?